Magazine selections

Despite its name, the RSL Review contains no book reviews – the emphasis is on features, interviews and essays, as well as news of the Society’s activities. Its cornerstone is the Dialogue section, consisting of two prominent writers in conversation: over the years these have included Ben Okri and Derek Walcott, Claire Tomalin and Victoria Glendinning, Seamus Heaney and Jon Stallworthy, Hilary Mantel and Beryl Bainbridge.

The RSL Review is packed with interviews, essays and photographs that you don’t find anywhere else in the press – an original, serious, and entertainingly offbeat record of our finest writers and writing.

Margaret Drabble

Print Copies

Members receive a free copy of the RSL Review, which is published annually in the summer. Alternatively, you can buy back copies direct from us at a cost of £5 for issues from Autumn 2017 or £3 for previous issues, plus £1.50 p&p. Please send a cheque, payable to ‘The Royal Society of Literature’, to The Royal Society of Literature, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA or call 020 7845 4679 to make a card payment.

Other Publications

A brief history of the Royal Society of Literature, by Isabel Quigly, is also available from the RSL office for £10 including p&p.

RSL Review Issue Archive

Autumn 2017

Highlights include an interview with new RSL President Marina Warner, children’s writer S.F. Said on how Philip Pullman has changed the literary landscape and as the RSL prepares to elect a band of younger Fellows, nine writers made Fellows in their twenties and thirties remember what it meant to them.

Women are increasingly taking lead roles in the theatre, but there’s still a long way to go. Tanika Gupta examines the glass ceiling

Autumn 2016

Highlights include Rose Tremain on forty years of writing, Alan Hollinghurst on Henry James, an interview with the RSL’s new Chair Lisa Appignanesi, Rowan Williams on his fascination with Dostoevsky and Nicolette Jones on how the books we read as children shape us forever.

Spring 2016

Highlights include an interview with Tim Robertson (the RSL’s new Director), The art of the horror story, Literary couples , Writers inspired by artists and Fellows’ poems inspired by Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Articles from this issue

Spring 2015

Highlights include Hilary Mantel and Harriet Walter’s discussion of inhabiting characters, Markie Robson-Scott on the problem of the second novel, Susannah Herbert on the best literary blogs and Ali Smith on the most precious book she owns.

Of the thousands of books published in Britain each year, only a handful are translated from foreign languages. Given the dominance of English as the international language of business and politics, perhaps our literary chauvinism is inevitable.

2012

Highlights include Maggie Gee on the crisis in public libraries, Victoria Glendinning and Claire Tomalin in conversation and Maggie Fergusson on her twenty years with the RSL.

Articles from this issue

It is no longer fashionable to divide history into monarchs’ reigns. But if we take the last 60 years to be the second Elizabethan Age, what characterises its literature? As the RSL’s Patron celebrates her Diamond Jubilee, seven writers give their views

﻿When John Carey wrote his biography of William Golding, one thing eluded him: the fate of Golding's first fiancee Mollie Evans. Then, at a talk following the book's publication, a stranger came up to him...